Ian Johnson

Join the University of Chicago's Center for East Asian Studies as we host the first CEAS Lecture Series of the 2020-21 academic year featuring Pulitzer- Prize Winning Author, Ian Johnson, in a virtual talk entitled, "How Chinese Intellectuals Are Trying To Fill In Blank Spaces in Contemporary Chinese History.” Since taking over leadership of China in 2012, Xi Jinping and his allies have sought to impose a narrative in which China's history is objective, linear, inevitable and glorious--a tale of triumph over tragedy, led since 1949 by the Communist Party. Yet for all this massive effort, a guerilla army of writers, intellectuals, filmmakers, and other thinkers promulgate and preserve history from below. They are not overseas dissidents or historians but people inside Chinese who seek to bring light to China's recent past, filling in the silence that has suffused society when it comes to sensitive subjects.